Read Online Life Cycle by Zoe Winters - Free Book Online Page A

couldn’t see each
other.
    “It’s better to kill Tam,” Cain said. He couldn’t
see his brother for a reaction, but he could guess at the
disappointed and disgusted look he’d find if he could. Luc was so
predictably good that way—hardly a demon anymore. He hadn’t been
the same since Anna. It was too much humanity for Cain’s taste.
    “You promised you’d protect her... Though, I don’t
know why I’m shocked at this revelation.”
    Cain bristled at that. He’d been loyal to Luc when
he’d been trapped in a house by a curse, bringing him his meals.
And he protected his own. It was a low blow for Luc to act as if he
couldn’t be anything more than a Judas. He was still miffed about
that. Hadn’t Cain been the first true betrayer in their history?
And Judas got all the glory.
    “She asked me to kill her. She wants out. She thinks
it’s safer, and I agree.” Cain felt Luc stop moving, so he did,
too. He knew he could get his brother on his side if Luc knew it
was the witch’s request.
    “So why isn’t she dead yet? You’ve had plenty of
time alone with her. You didn’t take the opportunity to take
her?”
    “I did.” Yet again he was glad for the invisibility
that cloaked them. He couldn’t tell anybody this if they could see
his face.
    “And she’s not dead because....”
Luc seemed to be taking Cain’s decision to kill her well,
especially since she was Anna’s best friend. In the end, Luc could
be a pragmatist if need be, and he was always interested in the
greater good. And they were brothers. Despite their differences, there were
some issues they were one on.
    Cain fought with himself over whether to share the
next bit, but the need to tell somebody won over the inner voice
that urged him to keep quiet. “Lucien, she’s two thousand.”
    “What difference does that make?”
    “Nevermind.”
    They both materialized, hidden behind a copse of
trees a few blocks from the small town Montana crime scene.
    “No, tell me what this is about,” his brother
said.
    Cain looked off into the distance. “She’s just
unique, all right? And she’s strong. Did you know she can resist my
thrall even with her shields down? Not a lot, but enough to make
snarky commentary.”
    Luc laughed, the pieces coming together. “You want to
keep her.”
    “No! I do not want to keep her. She’s the enemy. I’m
not you. I don’t fall for my food. I don’t get involved with
witches. I’m just... not bored with her yet. She can’t come in and
demand I release her from what she is. I don’t get that option. Why
should she? Why should she get to do some magic of her own free
will that makes her immortal and not have to deal with those
consequences? I should torture the hell out of her for even
asking.”
    Luc snorted. “Please. She’d drop your ass with that
energy ball magic she does. You can’t take her if she doesn’t want
to be taken, and you like that. I know you. You like a
challenge.”
    “Can we please stop psychoanalyzing me now? I
shouldn’t have said anything.” He couldn’t imagine spilling his
guts to one of the other demons, not even Daria or Jackson. Daria
would just blab. That succubus could be such a gossip.
    Luc clapped a hand on Cain’s back. “No, I’m glad you
confided in me. It makes it feel more like old times between
us—before I was trapped in the house, I mean. Not old times when we
were human.”
    The demon leader laughed, the memory of their human
days fuzzy by now. “I don’t know why I cared so much what the man
upstairs thought about me. You know if it was down to him and you
again, I’d pick you.”
    “I know.”
    “Don’t tell Anna about any of this. That’s an
official order.”
    Luc’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to give me an
official order. I won’t say anything.”
    With that off his chest, Cain went invisible again.
Luc followed suit, and they made their way through the trees to the
house with the police tape around it. A group of reporters